Interpolation
by Shun Ren Dan
Summary: Riku had cultivated his strength, and the time had come to protect what mattered.


The ride home from Radiant Garden was not a long one, though it always felt that way. With Naminé beside him in the cockpit, her eyes glued to the stars as they raced by distant nebulae and colorful galaxies that neither of them knew the names of, he felt more at peace than he had at any time across the last three years.

Sora was gone, and that loss stung, but he knew his friend better than anyone. He would be back, one day, and it was Riku's job to wait happily for him. For the first time, Sora had turned the tables on their tumultuous fates — it was his job, now, to find his way home, and nobody else's to go off searching until then.

Paintsplotch stars spread out for miles over the sea, cutting diamonds into the water below and casting the ocean in a blue-white haze. A stiff breeze drifted on from the glassy waves, caressing the shoreline and the modest beachfront house that overlooked it. Riku hadn't seen the place in years, much less lived in it, but it was still home to him, and he found its comforts relaxing.

There was something simple and pleasurable about knowing the way to the balcony, even with his eyes closed, and having the ability to look out over the crashing waves without the fear that they might suddenly fall away, never to return.

With the looming threat of Xehanort finally quelled, the days had grown longer. Friends came by less and less, and in the time it took for Naminé's vessel to reach completion, he grew increasingly restless. The heart burgeoning inside of his, one that was both his and not his, beat on in his chest with the memory of a final vow.

He had cultivated his strength, and the time had come to protect what mattered.

Now that he had her at his side, he wasn't quite sure what to do with her, and he could sense that same trepidation in her heart as he met her on the balcony beneath the stars. She turned to greet him, for a moment, her white dress pale-gray in the dark, and he wondered briefly if she felt as comfortable in the silence as he did.

"It's beautiful here," she observed, ocean eyes trailing toward the cloudless sky. "Peaceful."

She leaned up against the railing.

He took vigil next to her, arms crossed over the metal.

"I didn't always think so."

Naminé grinned in response, exhaled slow, and considered her next words as if carefully guarded additions to sheet music that he might never see.

"Do your parents live here with you?"

"They used to, but they don't come around much."

"Doesn't it get lonely?"

"It used to."

A comet struck by across the heavens, beating hazard through the constellations. He watched it scatter the array of specks that made up Orion's Belt, tear through Apus, and fizzle out in the vast, black expanse of the night.

She looked beautiful, in the still.

Naminé had always been pale, but over the sea, she was glowing. Angel hair spilled like golden ink around her face and graced her shoulders, blessed every so often by spiralettes of misplaced hair that danced this way and that. The body that was both hers and not hers was just as slender as he remembered it being, though a little taller, a touch more full. He could imagine his hand on her hip, the sensation of his fingers intertwined with hers.

It was foreign to him, to see someone so frail in a place so suddenly safe. Without the looming threat of the world coming unspooled, it was almost strange to see her beside him. She was a living ghost, brought into the world by will and magics that he didn't fully understand.

Her hands rose to her arms and he removed his jacket, gently placing it around her shoulders as he figured he ought. At first, she tensed, but when she saw that he didn't mind the cold, she wrapped herself up in it, her cheeks red.

"Thank you," she managed.

He didn't respond, not verbally. Instead, he leaned against the railing and reached for her hand. When she took it he offered her a gentle squeeze, a reassurance, placation in the form of an anchor.

Together, they stared out into the vast cosmos a little while longer.

It was a good change of pace, some consistent, careful company. Riku found Naminé's presence enjoyable; she wasn't the constant ball of color that Sora was, but she helped him forget the spiky-headed void in his heart and he felt certain that he did the same for her. It wasn't hard to identify the ways she relaxed, or to notice the way she buried her fingers in the borders of his jacket when he pulled his hand away from hers.

It wasn't difficult to see why his counterpart was so smitten with her. She was careful, considerate, and her words carried weight. She thought before she spoke and, even from a moment's conversation, he could see that she wasn't the sort to make a promise she couldn't keep.

Minutes passed, decorated by comfortable silence and pockets of small-talk that sprang from the stars. She questioned him about worlds near and far, about the places he had been, and the places he had yet to go. She asked him about Terra, and he told her about the follies and imperfections that once flecked his own heart in turn. It was strange to hear that she was the catalyst that brought his would-be mentor back to the light, but heartening in ways he couldn't describe.

Her story was as strange and winding as his own.

Her roots within Castle Oblivion, the way Marluxia treated her, the feeling of his gloves digging into her shoulder — the thought left Riku with a deep unease, one that he couldn't explain.

He chalked it up to simple empathy as she went on, explaining the memories she daisy chained together in order to guide Sora through Castle Oblivion and the death trap the Organization's traitors laid for him. Her time with Roxas was more interesting, and he remembered some pieces too, regretted a few of them, and apologized for what he needed to.

There was no apology for his battle with Roxas, but she knew the necessity of that just as well as he did.

His explanation of his most recent journey was riddled with questions big and small, quick interjections meant to fulfill her understanding of the events that brought her back to life. She was disappointed to hear about the death of his replica, understandably, but Riku couldn't help but to notice the faint glimmer of something else in her eyes at the mention of his legacy. It was as if his life inspired some recognition in her, and his memory was a domino that set the rest of the world right.

Midnight came and went before either of them realized, its passing signalled by the rhythmic beating of the clock inside of the den a few feet away.

Riku led her to the guest bedroom without much fuss, showed her the room's accommodations, and left her to shower in peace.

The sound of rushing water in the room next to his guided him to sleep within minutes.

Naminé did not have the easiest time following after him.

The next hour passed for her as if it were ten, spent rolling beneath the sheets of the guest bed to the sound of the ticking clock in the den. Riku's jacket sufficed as her blanket, and she bundled herself up inside of it as best she could, discomforted by the too-warm comforter or the too-cozy bedding beneath her. What brought her more comfort was the scent of salt and seawater that clung to her so long as she wore the jacket he gave her.

Interposed between both were the undertones of burnt wood, the scent of a campfire not yet burned, and the memory of a world six seconds before the invention of lightning. The sensation of all of those scents put together needled away at the heart in her chest and prickled away at her until her feet took charge where her head couldn't follow.

Step by step, she exited the guest room.

Walked through the den.

And gathered herself at Riku's door.

It felt silly to bother him so late in the night.

He must have already been asleep, and she could hear the soft sound of his breathing even before she peeked through the threshold. Her fingers braced against the door frame, and she considered for a moment walking back. Seeing him there, so close, so identical to the boy who made his promise to her and so far from the cold boy shrouded in darkness she once knew...

With a steadying breath, she approached his bedside. Ran a finger over the covers of his blanket, all bundled up, stretched to the ends of the earth by the unevenness of his sleep. His face was as stoic as it was when he was awake, twisted by the grip of some dream she couldn't spy from the waking world.

Was he dreaming of his friends?

Of saving worlds long lost to the darkness?

Or something closer to home?

Unable to stop herself, unwilling to return to the lonely guest bedroom, she joined him beneath the covers of his bed, interjecting herself against his dreams by the way she buried her face in the hollow of his neck. Riku didn't stir immediately; one hand came to rest on her hip, and the other raised the blanket to cover her on autopilot, as if it were some understood facet of their new dynamic that she never should have doubted in the first place.

She could hear his heart beating in his chest as she fell asleep, guided to join him by the subtle tempo and the reassuring way that his arms wrapped themselves around her.

When the morning came, he said nothing of her unannounced interpolation. If he minded, he did not mention it, and if he found her presence comforting, he didn't deign to mention it. Perhaps it was a sort of granted privilege, she wasn't sure and couldn't begin to guess — but she wagered he knew the way she felt.

About him, about the dreams she once had that were now deferred, and the comfort he brought her regarding them.

And so they fell into a steady rhythm.

They passed the days, sometimes together, others apart, and reconvened in the middle of the night. She always began in the guest bedroom, guided by the prospect of nightmares big and small to the border of his bed and the crook of his arms. There was a simple sort of satisfaction that she found when his arms wrapped themselves around her, when she could smell the residue of a campfire or the salt of his sweat up close.

His growing affections were galvanizing, and the ways he expressed them subtle.

He was never gone when she awoke, though he was sometimes awake when she wandered in to join him in the evenings. On those nights, he held her until she fell asleep, his fingers tracing little circles in her arm or the flat of her belly, sometimes outlining the ridges of her cheeks and the curvature of her jaw until she drifted away.

The days bled together in that rhythm until the time came for him to resume his journey, and the days spent at home grew fewer and far between.

Though they had never vocalized anything, not committed in any way or the other, she missed him all the same. His bed was not as comfortable without him there to share it, and days spent wandering the shore alone were far less fulfilling. The work that needed to be done in his absence wasn't hard, but it was tedious, and facing the stares of the townspeople felt more daunting with him gone.

He was not a necessity, but she wanted him there.

That knowledge made the nights they did manage to spend together more bittersweet. She clung to him more fiercely than before, relishing in the stories he told her of the worlds he visited and the lives he touched. That life was behind her, for the time being, and she did not miss it — but she couldn't shake the feeling that it would one day come for her again, warp her into worlds unknown and pluck her from the comfortable life she had come to enjoy.

She was, after all, expected to return to Radiant Garden one day.

Neither she nor him mentioned it, but they both knew that to be true. She was not without her own duties, and he couldn't hide her away on an island beneath the beautiful stars forever, no matter how badly they both wanted that.

"Ienzo asked about you today," Riku whispered into her ear one night, his arms wrapped around her waist. "About when you'll be coming back."

"Soon," she replied.

Part of her doubted that.

For a moment, neither of them said anything. The sound of waves crashing against the shore outside rocked on. When she rolled over, he opened his eyes to greet her, taking in the curve of her lip and searching her face for some hint of what it was that she wanted to say to him. Her warmth in his bed was something he suddenly realized he had taken for granted, and with the threat of it one day dissipating now real, his heart swelled.

"I'm going to miss you."

Naminé didn't react. Her hand rose to find his face and he heard the sheets shift as she pulled her knees up just a little. In the darkness, he couldn't quite tell, but he could see a faint, red tint painted across her cheeks like evening clouds across a twilight sky.

Was it wrong to wonder how her lips might have felt against his, in that moment?

He leaned forward, his heart frozen in his chest, and wondered what could have possibly been running through her mind as his face crept closer to hers. Inch by inch, breath by breath until he stopped breathing maybe a centimeter away. He wasn't sure what power stopped him, but suddenly he was all too conscious of the lithe fingers against his chest, the scent of rainwater and for a futile second he worried that he'd misread her all this time.

That she couldn't possibly have loved him, that the nights they shared were forays borne out of utility.

"I'm going to miss you too," she whispered, closing the last of the gap for him.

Their lips met and for a moment, all was still. The waves crashing outside faded away, the ticking of the clock was muted and the tempo beating across their suddenly shared hearts was indecipherable amid the comfortable silence that their kiss had returned to them.

He pulled away, for only a moment, and took stock of the way her face changed. She was usually so composed and serene that seeing her flustered only endeared her to him more, and his lips were upon hers again before he could dream of stopping himself.

His hand rose to her face and his thumb smoothed over her cheek. She leaned into the kiss without a word, taking his lips with hers and enjoying the sensation that hummed in her heart when she did so. At once, she came to the same realization that he had, and she kissed him with more passion than she imagined she would have.

His hands shifted as their kiss deepened, split apart, and began anew. Fingers trailed down the slope of her shoulders, then her side as she rolled atop him and put him on his back. Her hands cupped his face and he anchored her waist down upon his, relished the way she felt against him and the proximity that he'd been quietly dreaming of since she'd first taken his hand.

She was so soft, so warm, and her hands around his were the puzzle pieces his heart had always been missing — he'd been doomed to love her from the start.

So he took her lips with his again and again, basking in the taste of honey that lingered there and the way his heart soared every time they clashed together. It suddenly felt criminal to have hidden his feelings away for so long, to have left them unspoken, and they fumbled out in the moments between before he understood fully his need to put words to them.

"Naminé," he breathed. "I love you."

At first, she didn't respond. He drew back, offering her the chance to remedy that, searching her expression for any hint of the same feeling. She was always so hard to read, despite her open nature.

"You know that," he continued.

"Don't you?"

She looked up at him, her lips parted just so and her eyes wild.

Something in her hadn't expected him to say it. Not so clearly, not right to her face when his lips were so painfully far from hers and all the scents that lingered in his jacket that first night were now overwhelming her.

''Yes," she blushed. "I know."

He would have expected anyone else to return the sentiment.

Her lips fell to his neck and all thoughts of the moment's innocence melted away, replaced by something more visceral that roared in his chest like an open flame. His hands came to rest on her shoulders as her lips worshiped at the crook of his neck, showering his exposed skin in kisses both light and deep. They trailed, inch by inch, down the side of his throat, fell to the very top of his chest, and then rose again in sequence.

She showered him in her affections until her lips came to rest at his left earlobe. He heard her inhale, felt her hands roam his chest as she pressed her weight down upon him.

"I do love you," she admitted.

Each word was touched by some vague guilt that he understood better than he cared to admit, and Riku's fingers latched onto the sides of her arms, smooth and pale. They ran up and down, trailing between her elbows and her shoulders until they rose to cup her cheeks so that she could face him. Her words sounded so much like a confession that he couldn't help but to laugh, just a little, at how seriously she took them.

It was like she was absolving herself of some grave sin by telling him.

Instead, she was in bed, making out with a boy (he hoped) she found beautiful, confessing the feelings that they should have been adult enough to admit across the months prior. She braced herself on his chest and his fingers toyed with the fabric of her dress — she still slept in it, even after so long.

"Then let me go with you. When you go back."

She nodded.

He tugged at her hips and she squeaked.

Was it wrong of him to laugh again?

"People will ask questions," she acknowledged, her face buried against his chest, her heart beating like a hammer on piano wire.

"Let them."

"What will I say?"

He rolled with her still on top of him, placing her beneath him on the bed and adjusting so that he lorded over top of her. One hand held him up while his knees braced on either side of her.

"That you're my princess first," he joked. "And that nobody else can have you."

She didn't quite smile, but he could tell from the look on her face that she was trying not to laugh. Or die from the embarrassment.

It was hard to tell.

He quashed the debate in his head over which exactly was the case by pressing a coarse kiss against her jaw. She leaned down to correct him, to catch his lips with hers, but he pushed her chin away with his hand and went to work on the expanse of her neck.

She gasped in response and he continued, pleased when the gasps turned to little laughs and he considered the little whimpers that flecked every other one. Her hands reached for him in vain, unsure of what to grab onto while his lips dipped below her neckline. Only then did she figure out what to do, her hands pulling away at the straps of her dress while she adjusted in the bed so that he could pay her modest chest the attention he knew it deserved.

Her nipples were at attention and he took the right in his mouth, caressing the side of her breast with his hand. She straightened in the bed and he heard her muffle another gasp. How long had she been waiting for something like this to happen?

When had their yearning overflowed and become desire?

It wasn't like Riku hadn't thought about it. Wasn't like he hadn't wanted her just as badly. He could see it in her, though, the hunger that she'd been suppressing. That was the only difference, that suddenly their needs were made visible by the means of their sudden exposure.

His tongue worked over her nub, massaging it and circling it like a lion padding around a gazelle. He was so hungry for her that he couldn't help it — the way he breathed her name with every other lick, savored every gasp as the fire in her burned hotter than ever before.

The way he felt atop her felt far better than any of the nights she'd spent alone, working at herself in the bed. Her hand flickered down at the thought, reaching beneath the fabric of her dress until they came to the wetness that dotted her panties. Two fingers worked fervently over the cloth, massaging the small, aching jewel beneath.

"Riku," she whispered. "Can…?"

She didn't need to ask.

He slithered down her, discarding his shirt and tossing it to the floor. Her dress joined it a moment later, and allowed him the chance to drink in her almost-naked body for the first time since they'd met.

Blonde hair circled her face and fell in wisps around her slim shoulders; her arms now covered the modesty of her breast and the pale flesh of her stomach and thighs begged for admiration. He could see the dark spot spread across her white panties, and the ripple in the fabric where her fingers had been working but a moment before. Wordlessly, he gripped her thighs, carved a path of closed-mouth kisses across her belly, and then stripped her of her last line of defense. The panties that hid her away a moment ago joined his shirt and her dress, leaving her naked before him.

Warmth flooded his face and a familiar need roared below his waist.

Riku wanted to tell her how beautiful she was in that moment, but the time for words had passed.

He showed her instead, his lips and tongue continuing their journey to the bottom of her mound. She reacted without hesitation, lifting her hips to greet him and lowering her hands to the top of his head.

Her legs bent over his shoulders as he offered her tribute, paying his tithes with a long, slow lick that spanned her being. She shivered in response, stoked by the heat now growing inside of her, and whimpered when he did it again. It felt so slow, so paltry — it wasn't enough and he knew that.

And yet he teased her anyway, gently escalating the pace until a finger came to pause at her entrance. Naminé's face flushed at the thought, but she nodded, only to gasp when that same finger pierced her.

It was thicker than hers, and rougher, less trained.

"Go slow," she breathed.

Riku obliged, his finger gently pushing further inside while he led the flat of his tongue to the nub that so demanded his attention. He appeased it with two, gentle licks that bid her to raise her hips, and he felt her entire body tighten around his finger.

He took that as a sign to continue.

So he worked, his finger pressing in and out like a fickle invader determined to gather the scope of her being. Every little thrust produced another gasp and every flick of the tongue earned him a whispered tribute in the form of his name.

His free hand roamed her body in the meanwhile, running over her stomach, tracing the bones of her waist, circling the curvature of her rear. It gripped her thigh, it massaged the outer rim of her leg, and it eventually came to rest on her belly as he arched his back and increased the speed of his worship.

Naminé lost track of the words that slipped between her lips when she arched her hips upward into his mouth for the third or three thousandth time. She could feel all of the nerves in her body gathering in the bottom of her stomach and it wasn't hard to tell that they were close to coming undone. The fire Riku continued to stoke in her nethers was enough to tell her that, and the light sheen of sweat that spread across her arms and her forehead were clues to how close she was getting.

"Riku," she pleaded, thrusting into his mouth once again. "Please."

She sounded so pained that he obliged her.

"Riku…!"

She repeated his name as if it might somehow anchor her to the world before the storm inside of her could wash everything else away like debris. As if somehow voicing her love might hold him to her a moment longer, as if to make up for all those days where it went unsaid —

As if the world weren't suddenly exploding from within her and the warmth now flooding between her thighs needed to know what could be saved.

Riku watched her come undone at the end of his tongue, felt her entire body constrict around his finger, and breathed when she lowered her hips back to the bed. A flood of new wetness covered his hand, and her shallow breathing filled his ears like a symphony.

He withdrew his finger, sucked gently at the tip of it, and savored the taste of her on his skin.

Two kisses found their way to her left thigh, followed by two more on the right, and one, final peck of the lips that dotted the spot where her hip bound her right leg to her body. It was so rare that he found the time, the reason to express his affections. Given the chance, he needed her to know how badly he wanted her, and how badly he needed her, how badly he loved her and how much he wanted to travel the stars alongside her.

He shifted and crawled up the bed until he was beside her and kissed her one final time, letting his lips linger against hers until hers parted and suddenly her tongue was tangled with his and — and the next he knew, she was over top of him, her arms looped comfortably under his neck and his back pressed into the headboard.

He could feel her warmth through his boxers, and the sensation it produced when she ground her hips over his sent shivers down his spine. She rocked back and forth over top of him, teasing him as he had done her, coaxing the bulge beneath her to full attention before she deigned pay it any mind.

His hands found her hips and he grabbed her, harder than he should have.

"Naminé, we should stop here," he commanded, breathless.

"It's okay," she answered, burying her lips against the spot where his jaw connected to his ear.

"Riku."

When he said nothing, she rocked again, forcing a groan out of him that he couldn't stifle with his hands still rooted to her waist.

"It's okay," she continued, "if you want to…"

"I do, but…"

She nibbled at his earlobe, and he felt her breath against his ear. The moan that escaped him was anything but becoming, and he knew that she would see it for the filthy hunger that it was.

"You're okay with this… aren't you?"

He wasn't sure why she was pressing him, but… her voice was a siren song, and every word led him closer to ruin. He whimpered when she rocked her hips a final time, and he felt the outline of her womanhood through the fabric of his boxers.

It was so hard to resist her, so unfair that she could produce such a feeling in him.

"I want you."

It wasn't that he wanted to take any of what they had done back, but he felt the need to protect her — to make it so that their shared interpolation was not so sudden, and to hide the fact that they had caved in to each other one day like two crumbling towers left to time. If he could hold out for a second longer, he felt certain that he could have lifted her up off of him, kissed her goodnight, and rolled over.

And then she said it one more time.

His damnable name, whispered into his ear like a curse and a blessing at once.

"Riku…"

His boxers joined the rest of their clothes in a pile on the floor, pulled down by lithe fingers that guided him to the very edge of her entrance a moment later. His hands dug once again into her sides while she straddled him, her face flush, her hair stuck to her forehead by sweat. His manhood was painfully stiff, and in her hand, it stood to full attention.

She lowered herself, slowly, onto him.

Just the tip, at first, before she paused.

She was so tight that he was already prepared to explode, to lose all sense of himself in the quest to truly make her his. At once, the ache in him grew stronger, and he was about to pull her down further onto him when he heard her whimper.

Both eyes flickered upward and latched onto her face, at once full of alarm.

"Naminé," he whispered, leaning up just slightly. "Is this…?"

She nodded, and he understood at once.

It was his, too, though neither of them had thought of it. Or maybe it had been in her mind the whole time, and she hadn't wanted to concern him with something so paltry as a first. Perhaps it was that important to her, that the memory not be assailed by something like doubt or regret or the what-ifs that would have plagued someone else.

There was no more doubt in him.

No thought, other than desire, no worry other than that he might hurt her and that she might separate herself from him. He wanted her to feel safe in his arms, to love him in all the ways he loved her.

"Go slow," he said. "Be careful."

She sank lower and he felt something warm trickle down the length of his manhood. He didn't need to look to know what it was.

Naminé leaned forward on top of him as she came down the rest of the way, shaking. He wrapped her up in his arms despite the stars exploding in his mind's eye, aware that the bundle of nerves in his nethers were now so tightly wound that only release would ever cure him of the ache there. When she was ready, she lifted her hips, let them sink once again, and greeted him with a loud gasp.

"It hurts, but…"

He understood.

Riku's hands tugged her face downward to find his and he kissed her to shut her up, to let her accept the "but" more than she did anything before it. He wanted her to feel good above all else, to love the feeling of being with him as much as she loved him.

Each kiss was more breathless than the last as she raised her hips again and again, developing a steady rhythm that he accentuated with thrusts of his own. Every time she came down atop him, a burst of stars sailed behind his closed eyes. She felt so unbearably tight, so damning. If he hadn't been conscious of it before, the thought came to mind of just how many worlds had fallen at the whims of a princess and her whims.

She was, after all, his princess, and he would have accepted no argument on that. She was his, and he wanted her, and the fingers cupping her cheeks pulled her in to press her lips more fervently against his.

He needed more of her than she could give.

In that moment, his lust was a vault of glass and her need became the stars penned inside of it.

Riku thrust inside of her with everything he had as their rhythm increased and her gasps and whimpers subsided, replaced by full, long moans that led her lips away from his. She called his name and he answered in kind, hands roaming the length of her body until they found the curve of her ass and gripped hard. His fingers dug into the modesty of her rear and she gasped in response, unused to the sensation of being held so tightly and so roughly.

And yet, she wanted that — to experience him as he was and to feel something fully for the first time in her life.

She didn't care about the red marks that now littered her skin; those would be gone by the morning. What she cared about was him, the way he felt inside of her, the feeling in her body that was now once again building to crescendo as he thrust into her again and again. No amount of time spent on her own could have prepared her for the feeling that built in her, or the sensation that coursed through her when she felt him twitch.

Riku was painfully close, and though he tried to hide it, to persevere, he knew that he couldn't last much longer. She was so warm, her body so alluring, the sound of her voice so delicious that he never could have resisted her.

"Naminé," he grunted, "I'm…"

She continued coming down on him and the sensation at the end of his cock threatened to explode He could feel every bump and groove of her body as it tightened around him, feel her pleasure as she leaned over him, her arms wrapped tightly around his neck. Her back straightened and she felt herself reach her peak. In just a moment, she would…

"Naminé, you have to… I'm about to—"

"I know," she whispered.

"Go ahead."

Riku swore and thrust upward into heaven.

Warm, sticky liquid burst from the tip of his manhood and filled her at the moment she exploded in turn. Her entire body unspooled around him and the melody of her breath once again retreated to the same, shallow symphony that he now recognized as her absolution.

Slowly, the worries of the world faded away, replaced by a comfortable sort of silence that presided over their shallow breathing. She remained on top of him, her body numb, her legs devoid of energy, her head buried in the hollow of his neck. His arms were wrapped around her waist, and his eyes trained on the ceiling.

For a long moment, no words passed between them.

Riku knew only of the world that existed at the ends of his own nerves, of the valley that was her chest and the little knobs of her spine as he wrapped her up in his arms. He could remember only the sound of her breathing, the tempo of the heart beating against his own.

After a moment, he could tell that she closed her eyes, and he felt her nuzzle further into him. He wondered if she held the same questions he now did, and what answers for them he might have.

"Can you…?"

"I don't think so," she admitted.

"So you can't...?"

"No."

It hit him after a moment that they were not talking at all about the same thing, and he wondered, briefly, if he needed to mention that. His face went a little red, and the realization of what it was that she just told him left him silent.

Her heart skipped a beat when he hugged her even tighter, and a familiar, friendly warmth burgeoned in her chest. It felt so comfortable, being held like that, by him, in his bed and the home that they shared.

The thought that they would have to leave it behind one day—

"Are you really going to come with me?"

"Yeah," he said. "Of course."

She hummed and pulled away.

Riku stared into her eyes for what felt like an eternity, studying the little flecks of diamond hidden in her ice. It escaped him, how someone with such cold, lively eyes could be so warm.

He brought his lips to her forehead.

"It's a promise."


End file.
